Scratch the Surface : reSurfaced
by starfairy14s
Summary: [Moderate Rewrite of the Original] - Modern Japan AU - One of several takes on applying the Naruto storyline to a modern day setting, exploring more or less the usual Slice of Life themes, with a lean on studying the chemistry of certain pairings. Also Hinata is a Lolita and Naruto is a former yanki.


Star - So I've decided to go in with a 'Revision Attack!' on this fic of mine as a means to get back to writing again at a regular pace. OTL I've considered this off and on the past few years, and now I think I got a clearer approach to this, hopefully making it fun again. I'm both a little excited and nervous at the same time. And I did conceive this story as a highschool freshman after reading Lovelyanime-san's "Lolita Girl" and being inspired by her concept, so I don't expect even this revised version to garner much interest or praise, and that's totally okay. So with that, here comes thirty-nine revised chapters, and the eventual continuation of this story. w ;;; Ideally I'd attempt to post a chapter a day, pertaining to the shorter ones that lead up to chapter 20, but I now see the unlikeliness of that. Nonetheless, I hope to update quickly with this.

_Note__: I had OCs in the original version, for the most part I'm keeping the OC teachers and arc antagonists, but I've replaced Hinata's weekend friends/inner circle with Team Samui. They have a generally similar group dynamic my OCs had, so it all works out; basically a vitriolic best bud pair and a solitary foil._

* * *

Scratch the Surface

Ch. 1 - Wallpaper Child

_I'm restless._

She sits plainly in her corner of the restaurant booth, flitting cursory gazes from one set of eyes to another, never attempting to make contact with them, but rather making sure she's only stared at the space above their eyebrows for seconds at a time. She's not exactly alone, but she isn't sure she understands what her companions are talking about. They don't mind her quiet nature because beside her is a young woman, stoic and cool, whom they've known long before she joined their little circle. In some ways it feels like she's silent out of solidarity for her, because she's still awkward and new among them, and it's this persistent feeling that reminds her... though she doesn't really want to think about it.

She's had her decadently designed compact mirror gripped in her left hand for forty minutes, while she's been combing through her straight, dark bangs errantly with her right.

She still doesn't know what the two of them are discussing before it rounds out into their usual bickering, as it always will-but there's no expectation for her to participate.

"If you keep that up, your hair will fall off," says the dark-skinned boy across from her, a matter-of-fact finger pointed in her direction.

"No, it won't you moron!" complained the dark-skinned girl beside him before quickly striking a fist into the back of his head. He appeared to have face-faulted, since he didn't bother to lift himself back up from his current position: folded over with his nose barely touching the table's surface.

"...And now I have an intracranial hematoma."

"Stop bullshitting already, you're so irritating!"

"No, look." He lifted his head much to the shock of his companions. A steady trail of blood was running out his left nostril, over his wide lids and dripping slowly off his chin.

"Stupid! Grab some napkins already!"

The girl with straight, dark bangs diverted her gaze away from them after the dark-skinned girl began shoving napkins against his face, muffling his exaggerated complaints.

She dressed up as a _Guro-loli_ every now and then, but those stains weren't real blood, they were too bright to be real. She slowly closed her compact mirror and shrunk shyly into the wall corner. She caught the gaze of her stolid companion beside her and awkwardly returned a smile-subtle emissions of maternal pity had been aimed at her, and it flustered her slightly. She didn't share much with them, but apparently she couldn't hide anything from them either.

* * *

Autumn twilight.

The smooth fingers wrapped around her smaller hand only seemed to punctuate the odd silhouettes made by the multitude of high-rises around them. These flat blocks of shadows seemed to slowly encase them as they walked along the cold asphalt of a residential backstreet. They were like cardboard paper.

"Are you hemophobic?" asked her stolid friend.

There was a sturdy pause at first, then a shrug, "I'm not sure. I suppose... at the sight of it, I feel compelled to avoid it, maybe even pretend it's not there..." She feels a squeeze on her hand.

"I wonder why that would be."

She avoids her line of sight, the waves of gentle concern flustering her further.

She shrugs her mulberry velvet cape tighter around her small frame and unconsciously leans in closer to her sempai. These sundays are for weekend Lolitas like them, herself a Classic Lolita for the day in muted reds and crisp off-white frills, and her taller companion a Wa-Loli in half solid-half patterned garb; the right half of her upper kimono is black, the left is decorated in a traditional design with glittering goldfish. She has a solid black bustle, a wine red obi with a bright orange cord wrapped around it, and black _tabi_-style thigh highs.

She does not know her real name, but her sempai is kind of remarkable to look at; just under six-feet tall, she has piercing blue eyes and the straightest pale blonde hair she's ever seen, styled confidently into an asymmetrical bob. She's also arguably the most curvaceous woman she's seen, next to the school nurse at her high school.

Right now she feels like a paper kite being pulled along by a cool breeze, and eventually she'll land back where she always does.

* * *

Home.

She has her homework sheets, print-outs, and textbook pamphlets spread evenly across the _kotatsu_ surface. She sits with the comforter snug over her legs, her back straight and head high for her father while she pored over her studies. This was her home mask, her _tatemae_ so to speak. His expectations were obvious enough, sometimes she wondered what was ever wrong with her before, being a child of such diffuclty that she couldn't process and perform the standards he set for her, for them all, really. Even her little sister knew better, caught on quicker-although perhaps it helps to have example, ie her.

She pauses as she realizes her left hand had been unconsciously raised to tuck some hair behind her ear when there was no hair loose at all. The urge is there, however, irrational though it may be. She drops her hand back down and pushes a sigh through her nose.

_There's no strand. There's no strand. There's no strand._

Then there's another inexplicable urge while she tries so hard to focus yet ignore, to push aside a need to maintain hair that is already maintained, to pretend that she doesn't need to stretch a little from her position, that she's not under his peripheral supervision.

A young man, no more than a year older than her, smoothly sits himself down across from her with a thick book in hand. His face is handsome though blank, and he wear his ash-brown hair in a long ponytail that hangs loosely from the base of his neck. He never makes eye contact with her, not that it bothers her, but she needs to get up suddenly. So she makes sure she pushes herself away and has raised to her feet in a demure, fluid motion, before she wanders off towards the direction of the toilet, next to the laundry room.

She promises it doesn't get to her, but she hangs her head in her hands whilst she sits purposelessly on the toilet, and suppresses her anxious sobs as best as she could.

There was never a sound for twelve years, and there was never any sound yesterday... And she made sure there wasn't any sound today.

Not once.

* * *

"I'm going now," She calls from the _genkan_. Her little sister scuttles out of the house shortly after her, and they're on their way to school.

"Bye!" the younger calls out to their house, as if a final measure in etiquette.

Treelines, powerlines, and jagged outlines of apartment complexes and houses alike-they're absorbed in a faded blue hue, the morning light is weak due to a stubborn fog, but neither of them mind. Cars steadily sped up and down the street. Mothers waved goodbye to their young children in their clunky red backpacks, others escorted their little-er ones in their yellow caps to their respective institutions. A few salarymen were trudging wearily towards the bus stations, half-aware and carefully activating a long-cultivated ability to sleep standing and awake punctually at their stop.

These men were the overtimers. They wouldn't even return home for another three days to a whole week at a time. Just briefly she imagined her father in such a position, but she could only relate to the times he went away on business trips. She wouldn't see him for a week to a month at a time. She felt oddly wistful.

In her thoughtfulness she glanced off to the side at her younger sister, childish red backpack hanging off her waif little shoulders. Though they were sisters, she resembled their elder cousin the most, what with her long brown hair and warm skin color. They got their looks from their fathers, fathers who had been twins. But she... she had such dark, thick hair, such unsightly pale skin and a figure that hardly resembled even her late mother's. Hanabi... she would be willowy and beautiful like their mother...

Just then she was struck with a phantom sensation of her sempai's smooth fingers wrapped around her own, and the large swell of her breasts, significantly larger than hers but large like hers nonetheless, and she felt unstable and wistful for a myriad of reasons.

She tore her gaze away from the top of her little sister's head and shoved her left hand into her skirt pocket, almost furiously gripping at the inner lining in her small fist. She wouldn't see sempai again until next Sunday... unless she could contact her, try to see her after school...

She acknowledged the departure of her younger sister as she walked past the young girl's primary school gate, neither saying a word, nor an affirmation.

It's always been this way as well.

The things normal people, normal _families_, still do are things that had become tedious in their family.

They were a well-oiled machine.

* * *

"Sanada."

"Present!"

"Ishida."

"Present."

"Inuzuka."

"Here."

The homeroom teacher coughed discreetly, "Please say 'Present'."

"My bad, Sensei. I'm here."

Their homeroom teacher face-faulted with a heavy sigh, while a few classmates broke out into quiet chuckles.

"Hyuuga."

"Present." She uttered evenly, though compared to the majority of extroverted and well-rounded classmates, her soft voice stood out painfully loud, painfully different from their own and hearing herself speak still bothered her, well into the end of her first year of high school. Feeling pathetic for the umpteenth time, she felt curious and stole a glance at Inuzuka's direction. He caught her gaze and smiled warmly at her. She swiftly turned around and smothered her own smile-damn, damn all infectious smiles, damn them forever. She felt stupid and happy and she was okay with that. She didn't talk to him much, not yet, but she caught him on a couple occasions reading some _mooks_ that followed the fashions of _Harajuku_; he spent most of the time looking at the punkier, more goth side of the street fashion spectrum, and she knew they had something common, even if maybe he didn't know it yet.

She rested her cheek against the flat of her knuckles and turned her attention out the window. She thought about her next 'broken dolly' idea, how she could better pull off a medical eyepatch with her blunt-cut bangs. Somehow her last few tries hadn't gained any interest from the _KERA_ photographer who often hanged outside the _Laforet_ building, and she kept trying to determine what she needed to do better, what she needed to pull off in order to be recognized, even if he didn't take her photo. Her eyelids fell, chargin mixing into her normally distant features.

_Stupid. He's not going to greet you and let you be on your way. He's going to take your photo because he likes what he sees._

She hadn't done Guro-Loli in several weeks, but perhaps when she felt like this, she became really compelled by it; she could expose her vulnerability freely, and in the end it was rather cathartic.

In reality it was rather morbid, wasn't it?

To want to appear broken and beaten up...

She squeezed her eyes shut to banish the ugly realization, and when she opened them again she thought she saw a golden porcupine in the courtyard.

* * *

There's an unused classroom in this school. Just beyond it is some modest construction portion of the building is going under, so no one bothers with this northeast corner other than the workers who leave and enter through the stairwell above the gymnasium. She usually nods a greeting if she passes by a contractor or whomever and they nod back and leave her be. They recognize her as a student and have no reason to mind her regular migration to the empty classroom during lunch period. And in here she has arranged the desks and chairs into a simple barricade, all except for one chair and four desks that she has pushed together into a makeshift kotatsu (minus the comforter and electric heat or charcoal heat, or any heat for that matter to make it really resemble anything like a kotatsu). Nonetheless, only she came here, and this was officially her own little space.

She had her _mooks_ with her, her smartphone for music, and her thermis and bento (with a lovingly packaged dessert to go with it).

She grasped the circular grip in the _fusuma_ and carefully slid it open, as if this were a special ritual that, if not done correctly, would activate a cursed barrier that would banish her from access permanently.

_So far, so good._ She smirked inwardly at herself, for her own silliness. She's had to have been here a hundred and eight times already. But then her right foot seemed to forget where the ground was she stopped awkwardly in place, trying to remember how to proceed foward not believing that she could.

It couldn't be possible.

She couldn't do it.

She could see something was not right through the criss-crossing stacked desks and chairs before her-the shape of a school a uniform, specifically the boys' uniform.

She sank to her knees.

_No._

She could clearly see the angular shape of his shoulder through his white Y-shirt, legs from boxy hips curled atop her four desks, already putting heavy creases in the back of his red plaid uniform pants.

IT WAS A DAMN BOY IN HER SPACE!

Frustration was ready to pour from every orifice in her face as she witheld as best she could, her left hand clasped firmly against her mouth and nose, ready to suffocate herself if she had to. If she passed out, then all the better. Complete darkness was highly welcomed than dealing with the tumultuous stirring of disappointment and aggravation right now.

She wanted to shove those stacked desks in his direction.

But she couldn't do that.

She wanted to pin him under the chair legs so he couldn't move.

But she wouldn't be able to do something like that.

She wanted someone to kick him out for her, she wanted someone to come in and teach him a lesson.

She wanted him gone!

Leaving her stuff aside on the floor, she slunk towards the barrier, keeping her eyes on his frame like a lionness staring through tallgrass, and she carefully grasped a chair and lifted it from its once fortified position.

She would show this cocky bastard for stepping all over her precious solitude!

However, the closer she got to him, the larger he seemed to become, and she couldn't will away the tremor in her small hands, nor could she stop tracing her eyes over the sunlit trail that hit over the length of his legs, from his fingertips to his shoulder, across his sleeping face and... golden porcupine. It was his hair. No, it wasn't like a porcupine. It was... like sunflower petals.

She stubbornly sucked in her bottom lip and chewed on it indecisively. Even if she hadn't notice his unusually bright hair, she would have been at this very standstill anyways, because she's never interacted with someone directly, by herself, with no one else around.

Especially not a male classmate.

But wait... she'd never seen him before! So the same could be said about her for him! As in 'get this stupid crap over with and you'll never see each other again'!

_But what if he's an upperclassman?_

She gripped the chair leg a bit more decisively this time. She glanced at the tip of his shoes. She blinked.

_He's not wearing indoor shoes at all..._

Instead he was wearing a rather ratty pair of black chucks.

...

He dirtied her space with shoes he's worn for god knows how long and where and through hell knows what.

This would _not_ be tolerated.

"I'm a Morals Officer today... I'm a Morals Officer... I'm a Morals Officer..." She whispered to herself affirmatively.

She gingerly caged his upper body between the legs of the chair in her hands, and much like sweeping a cockroach outside from between a cup and some newspaper, she-as forcefully as her little self could manage-shoved him off the top of the combined desks. He yelped upon impact, and she pinned him beneath the chair like she had imagined she would, his frantic blue eyes darting quickly over her face for some kind of answer.

And it was just like that for a few seconds.

She couldn't seem to say anything to him, and he was still pretty shell-shocked.

"... Wh-who're you..?" He uttered carefully, noting her wet, livid red eyes, and soggy grimace.

"I-I-I'M TH-THE M-MORALS OFFICER!" It just came out, though it wasn't true at all.

He scratched awkwardly at his cheek while avoiding her almost comically bitter gaze.

"Hnn, that's not good for me then, is it?" He muttered thoughtfully. "... Please don't tell on me? I'm not a student here yet, though you probably already figured that out..."

_Heeeeeehh?_

Beneath her grasp was a strange boy with golden hair, shyly scratching at a cheek that seemed to sport three hair-thin markings, and he admitted to not being a student at all.

And she wasn't actually a Morals Officer either.

What did she do now?

* * *

Star - I felt like my original writing (which was from tenth grade) was pretty hackney, so I didn't wanna bother nearly copy-pasting that shiz. This is still planned as a light revision, but yeah, at this point up until chapter 18 or 19, it's kind of a consolidated retelling. (embarrassed expression). But I hope that's alright. I wanna get back to writing, even if none of it starts off perfectly and all. I mean this was pretty light on description for starters, and I'm not sure if it receives well or not, so yeah... gonna post as is and see what happens.

Thank ahead of time for hits and whatnot, I appreciate any interest this story concept gets. :o


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